I came back to the hobby last year after about 25 years and was blown away by the myriad of paints/glues and chemistry "stuff" in general. Back in the day there were enamels (Testors/Humbrol) and acrylics (Tamiya was the only one I knew of). Of course there were lacquers then too, but my LHS didn't really carry many of them. I stayed away from acrylics even though they were non-toxic and low odor because of what I knew about painting on canvas, acrylics were for kids and starters, Grumbacher oils were for those who knew what they were doing, LOL.

Anyway, last year I found out that some (not all) acrylics (Tamiya) are water based, but you can also use isopropyl alcohol as thinner and cleanup. But there are other acrylics that are not water based at all. I'll just come right out and say, I do not understand this at all, but I've moved on and do not want or need to.

I still have several bottles of Testors "Model Masters" but the entire line was cancelled after some asshat bought Testors and killed their greatest product. So I invested pretty heavily in Tamiya bottles, both the X and the XF series.

There may well be better products out there now, I suspect there are 50+ paint manufacturers today, the learning curve is steep unless you are a chemist, but I think you can choose among many brands/types and be in a good place.

You will probably want to have two entirely different types of paint if you are into aircraft and armor, that allows you to paint one color on top of another without the second color molesting the first.